What Do I Want to Be Happy?
EVERY MAN IS IN ONE OF THREE
CONDITIONS BEFORE GOD
1. When the unconverted man is consciously in the presence of God he does not speak, his mouth is stopped, he is “guilty before God”, Rom 3: 19; Rev 20: 12.
2. The converted man is a step farther on the road. His face is God-ward. He is born again; hence he speaks, but he is not quite sure how things will turn out. He lacks confidence in God, Luke 15: 18, 19.
3. The Christian is in the full liberty of the Son. He speaks, for it is the Spirit of the Son who speaks in Him. He is “always confident”, Gal 4: 6; 2 Cor 5: 5, 6. “Perfect love” (God’s love) has cast out all fear. Which of these is the position of the reader, before God? Man is only fully and perfectly happy when he is in the last, that is, thus consciously and without a question, in the presence of God, and knowing well that GOD is delighted to have him there.
We may remember that conversion (new birth) was as necessary in Old Testament times as now, Ps 19: 7; 51: 13; Isa 6: 10. But saints were not always when (consciously) in the presence of God in Old Testament time, happy to be there. There was a measure of occupation still with self, and this was of necessity so, for the first man had not been then judicially set aside in the cross. I think that Job 42: 5, 6 and Isa 6: 1-6 will sufficiently illustrate what I mean. Both were converted men, and were high in the esteem of our God, both really born again, but neither was indwelt of the Spirit. This is the difference which I see between a converted man and a Christian, as the word makes that difference known to us.
For the man who is “of the earth, earthy” (1 Cor 15: 47)—the guilty head of a ruined creation—the more he is conscious of God’s presence, the more also is he conscious of his own utter unfitness to be there for one moment. Like Jacob of old, he exclaims, “How dreadful is this place” (Gen 28: 17), or “I heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes”, Job 42: 5, 6. “Woe is me, for I am undone, for mine eyes have seen the King the Lord of hosts”, Isa 6: 5. For rest and joy in God’s presence we must have a new man there. Thus alone can man be perfectly happy in God’s presence. The New Testament reveals to us this. Its subject is the accepted Man; as the testimony of the Old Testament ever pointed to man’s rejection, and God’s need of a substitute; so this discloses the heart of God at rest in the Man of His own providing,
The testimony of the New Testament, that which underlies every page in it, as the careful reader of it must have noticed, is this, that there is a Man now in God’s presence and in the eternal favour of God. What a change and what a relief to the heart it is to turn from the testimony of the Old Testament, whose burden is that man could not be there! Here we have rest and peace, for there are those that are OF him who is raised up “far above all principality, and power”, Eph 1: 21. Of Him, as Eve was of Adam, for while Adam slept (Christ in death) God took of his substance, and therewith builded He a woman and brought her to the man. When I am instructed by the Spirit as to what Christ is before God, and now as Man, I have found my own portion and rest. For how can I then be occupied with myself in any way? How can I think of my own unfitness, or of myself at all? I see Him, God’s Christ, and His fitness, not as Isaiah and Job saw themselves, and therefore their own unfitness. There was no other man there to rest on when Isaiah and Job looked, but there is such a Man there now—a perfect, blessed Man, though ever Son of God, too.
Now the Holy Spirit, present on earth since the day of Pentecost, and indwelling all believers, has Christ as His theme. “He shall testify of me”, John 15: 26. Therefore He ever seeks to occupy the saints with the absolute and intrinsic value as before God of Christ and His work; that is, with Christ’s perfection, and not with our imperfection. It should be an accepted truth with us that the first man has no place nor standing before God. It was the burden of the Old Testament, but have we learned it even now? Have we done with that man, and so ceased to have him before us? And on the other hand, as I have said, the burden of the New Testament is as to the One who as Man is even now “crowned with glory and honour”. The first man is eternally displaced, has no place in the presence of God, and I as a believer, or rather as a Christian, have my union now before God with Christ, and am no longer identified with Adam. “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name”, Ps 103: 1.
It is clear from all the testimony of the word of God that the man whom Isaiah and Job saw in the presence of God never was there, is not now there, and never will be there. This could not be revealed to them in that day. It was reserved for us to be led into this blessed secret and into the knowledge of union with Christ, and to be formed in Him “one new man”, Eph 2: 15.
The more then that we are now in the presence of God thus the happier we are. In one sense we are always in His presence, but I mean consciously in His presence. As we read in the passage to which I draw your attention, “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord”, 2 Cor 3: 18. The more we contemplate Him, the more we see how that blessed One, who went down under the whole weight and judgment of our sins, has introduced in Himself as Man, what is, as to this race, wholly new, and eternally delighting to the heart of the blessed God! As Man, God has raised Him to the highest place in heaven; and, as Man, there He has crowned Him “with glory and honour”, Heb 2: 9. There He bears “a name that is above every name” (Phil 2: 10), and there He is for me, and I am invited to contemplate Him there in this passage (as ever) all along the road I travel here. We have title, and what a relief it is, to be only and always occupied with that Man.
In the Old Testament (and always even now, where we think of ourselves) what is before us is the Man REFUSED, The veil is stopping the way un-rent. There is no veil now. In the New Testament (dating from His birth, see Luke 2: 14), the subject is the man accepted. This, I take it, is simple Christianity. Whether on earth or in heaven, one story is before us. Christ is always the same, the Man accepted, and He, in all the consciousness of this, treads the earth for three-and-thirty years, where we also now walk in His footpath, and according to His own blessed word to Peter, “What is that to thee? follow then me”, John 21: 22. Thanks be to God that the believer is able to say, ‘I am of that blessed Man and no longer looked at by God as of Adam. His place is mine, and His acceptance is mine’. “As he is, so are we in this world”, 1 John 4: 17. I take it that the difference to be seen in believers now and believers in the Old Testament, consists in the fact that the Spirit of God dwells in believers now (Eph 1: 13), and he ever testifies to the worthiness of Christ if un-grieved in us. This could not be the work of the Spirit on earth until Jesus was glorified. “The Spirit was not yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified”, John 7: 39 NT. See hymn 25 in ‘Little Flock’ hymn-book4, which I take it is the language of a believer as of Christ, and so indwelt of the Spirit.
From Helps in Things Concerning Himself —vol 4, 1894
